A recurring question on this blog is this: Is there a limit, in terms of appropriateness or “correctness,” in fundraising for causes that would help put an end to breast cancer?

My blogging colleague and friend, fellow BC ~survivor/advocate/NBCC summit attendee and former chemo recipient, AnneMarie Ciccarella, @chemobrainfog wrote about an upcoming bikini parade planned by a tanning salon owner in Madison Lake, MN. Proceeds from the march will go toward a nonprofit group called the Breast Cancer Natural Prevention Foundation (preventbc.org). This true story is problematic at many levels, as AnneMarie points out.

But sometimes an extreme case of something – here what’s billed as a BC fundraiser – can be instructive. A few months ago I wrote about Boobstagram – a French website that asks women to submit pictures of their breasts to increase awareness of the value of healthy breasts. The site, vaguely and with few words, tries connecting the barely clad images with “the fight against cancer.” Although I’m still not convinced that the concept utterly lacks merit in principle, and maintain that some of the voices raised here were, perhaps, too quickly dismissive and uptight about the possibility of fundraising or BC activism by this method, I acknowledge that the men running that company seem to be doing nothing useful in terms of reducing breast cancer or its complications.

The Minnesota bikini march will take place on July 28. The line-up starts at noon. The walk will begin at 1PM. According to the announcement on the Electric Beach Mankato website, “only females in bikinis will be counted toward the world record.” The organizer and salon owner, Cynthia Frederick, needs 451 participants to break the Guinness World Records mark for largest bikini parade. That site lists the record as 357 women, based on a 2011 event in Queensland, Australia. But that achievement was recently surpassed in Panama City, FL. What’s different about the prior demonstrations is that there was no pretense of raising money or awareness to help fight, prevent or cure breast cancer.

Minnesota bikini parade participants will pay $20 or $25 for tee shirts. Net proceeds will to go the Breast Cancer Natural Prevention Foundation. The foundation’s site suggests that sunlight prevents BC by increasing vitamin D levels (which is total BS, to be perfectly clear). Taking too much vitamin D can do damage, as can excessive sun exposure.

As I read this, a tanning salon – a business that causes melanoma and other skin cancers – is promoting a walk of bikini-wearing women in midday summer sun to break an amusing world’s record. The parade will, if anything, harm those women who, naively or otherwise, believe they’re supporting a legitimate effort to prevent breast cancer. Any funds raised will support a foundation that promotes what’s tantamount to snake oil for the disease.

So there is a line, in the sand… And it’s been crossed!

If I were an investigative journalist, I’d want to know more about the organization that calls itself the “Breast Cancer Natural Prevention Foundation.” Does it get tax breaks? If so, why?

The idea is for women to take photos of their breasts, send them in, and raise awareness about the importance of healthy breasts.

You can look and “like” Boobstagram on Facebook. Over 20,000 have registered their appreciation for the site, so far. The timeline reveals that Boobstagram opened a FB account last November and first uploaded images late in February. The About page starts with this message: Send us your boobs at boobstagram@… When I visited yesterday, at around 7PM EST, over 9,000 people were “talking” about Boobstagram on FB. Boobstagram’s Twitter following is on the small side, relatively, perhaps because it’s an image-oriented source of awareness.

Instagr.am, for those readers who use Blackberries or might be otherwise out-of-the-loop, is a phone app that lets you take and share photos in a flash. Coincidentally, Facebook recently purchased Instagram for $300 in cash, plus.

On its main website, the company’s tag line is translated into English: “Showing your boobs on the web is good, showing them to your doctor is better.” The explanation continues:

…The fight against cancer is long-standing…We cannot all become doctors or surgeons. But we can all take part in prevention, for ourselves, for our friends and family and for others. But how?

…How to avoid the pitfall of moralism ? How to build a popular communication matching with the up-to-date scientific knowledge ? And how to create a rather fun prevention campaign when most campaigns use fear ?<sic>

Capiche? Not sure I do. (Please forgive me if I mix languages and messages, for the moment.) This topic’s ripe, pre-blended. And sort-of fun, as things go here.

Fact is – once I’d narrowed the post topic selections to either Boobstagram or a recent report on 10 distinct genetic breast cancer variants, I chose Boobstagram. The Nature paper is very important work. Fox News called it a landmark study, correctly from what I’ve read elsewhere. I should read up on the new genotypes, and learn how those relate to old-fashioned BC subtypes, and the prognosis and potential for targeted therapies directed to each. And so should, I suppose, breast cancer patients and their loved ones who wish to make informed decisions. Practicing oncologists should know all about that paper by now, digested it entirely.

Business Insider covered Boobstagram, but overall there’s not been a whole lot of attention in the U.S. HuffPo U.K. was on it, but not here, where I might post if I choose. I’m not sure if I will, or should –

This company, founded by two men, seems to be having some fun with cancer, women’s breasts and phones. Is it exploitative? I’m not sure whether to laugh, cry, or blow it off as boys behaving badly. Or girls behaving badly. Or both, together, normally.

It’s sexist, yes – but so’s an ordinary half-time show during a football game, or a pair of 4-inch heels. Besides, many tolerate infantilizing and commercializing events in the context of BC awareness, as Gayle Sulik points out. Those campaigns – some tawdry, some tasteful, and usually bright pink – rake in money for research and patient care. Is Boobstagram so different? Strictly off-limits?

Seriously, what if the website brought in 180 million Euros through ads next year, and the company founders gave it all to the IARC and a few really solid cancer research agencies? Maybe next year their American friends will open a similar platform to raise money for the strapped NCI.

Are we too uptight? Or is the problem simply that the French website lacks meaningful relevance to any cancer cause?

The almost-obvious, pat and probably correct answer, would be to call out Boobstagram for what it’s worth: a farce. There’s no hint that this company has a specific plan or funds to support cancer research or help patients in any meaningful way. I can’t support it. But maybe – and this is a stretch – in the long term cultivating love, or admiration… of women’s breasts raises their value, and reminds us of the tragedy that is breast cancer.

As many ML readers are aware, late this morning, the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced it will not cut current grants or funding to Planned Parenthood. This reversal comes as welcome news to those who support the agency and its work. The New York City branch issued this statement.

Still, many breast cancer advocates, activists and others question Komen’s priorities. This episode draws attention to debate within the BC community about the relative merits of spending charity dollars on screening, education, awareness, research and other concerns.

The long-term fallout from this week’s news and the agency’s reversal aren’t known. As I suggested earlier, Komen’s leadership might take this opportunity to reassess its mission and goals.

When I first heard the Susan G. Komen Foundation is nixing its financial support of Planned Parenthood, I thought it might be a mistake. Maybe a rogue affiliate or anti-choice officer had acted independently of the group’s core and mission, and the press got the early story wrong. I waited for Nancy G. Brinker, Komen’s surviving sister, to step in and deny the BC agency’s change of plans. That didn’t happen.

Rather, in a stilted video released yesterday, Brinker defends her agency’s decision as part of a “strategic shift” having to do with funding for any organization under investigation. That’s a bogus excuse, as others have detailed.

Komen, the world’s largest BC agency, has been under scrutiny for some time. Through its early fundraising campaigns and walks, the group raised public awareness – and discussion – of the disease. Since its inception in 1982, the agency has invested over $1.9 billion in education, breast-cancer screening, research and other grants. The discourse has changed, though. Now, many are critical of Komen’s historic focus on BC education and screening, including mammography, and tire of seeing so much pink.

This week’s outcry over the agency’s political turn has been fierce. It’s not too late for Komen’s leadership to take note, change course and revise its agenda.

The Arizona Republic reports on a divided community in Gilbert, AZ. At issue is the high school cheerleading team’s plan to wear pink tee shirts with the slogan: “Feel for lumps – save your bumps” on the back. The group’s intention was to raise awareness and funds for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The school’s principal said no to the controversial outfits due to their “unacceptably suggestive” content.

What strikes me, among other interesting aspects of this story and what it reflects about BC awareness in 2011, is how the arguments (so needless!) about fundraising play out so differently, depending where you live and the newspapers you might read.

This morning I walked into a Starbucks and noted a woman wearing a little pink ribbon on the lapel of her suit. She appeared to be in a meeting, speaking seriously with a small group of people dressed for business.

How great is that, I thought, that she wears the pink ribbon unabashedly, in this October of 2011. She sees nothing wrong with raising awareness about breast cancer, or expressing her concern about this killer of women. Kudos!

In some circles now it’s fashionable to bash pink symbols, to say how breast cancer shouldn’t be prettified, or commercialized, or overblown. What I’d say is, of course, the disease isn’t beautiful, or good, or inherently profitable, or to be perceived as a gift. It’s none of those things.

But we take for granted, lately, how open people are about breast cancer and its complications. Twenty years ago, and even ten, many women I knew took their treatments silently. Few disclosed their illness to others in the community. Many lacked open sources of information or support. For some, breast cancer was a source of shame.

Today the author fears she is suffering from breast cancer fatigue syndrome, an unofficial and possibly infectious condition that she named this morning, that comes from too much thinking about breast cancer and the incidence of which peaks in October, and/or that she may be suffering from writing-about-breast-cancer fatigue syndrome, an affliction of some bloggers.

So she will take the rest of the afternoon and evening off, and do some reading and enjoy the weekend with her family.

The Santiago Timesreports that the rescued Chilean miners donned suits and pink ribbons, the latter in honor of breast cancer awareness month, at a ceremony at the the presidential palace, la Moneda.

Sure, the pink scene’s getting to be a bit much around here. But I don’t belittle this gesture; the miners’ intentions are surely well-meaning, and in places like northern Chile where they lived and worked, BC doesn’t get the overblown attention it does here, at least not yet. Not even close.

According to the most recent figures available, roughly 160,000 people are living with metastatic breast cancer in the U.S. The number may be higher now, based on progressive availability of new drugs – especially in the past decade – that are slowly extending the average life-expectancy of women with Stage IV disease.

Last October, the U.S. Senate (on 10/13/09) and House (retroactively, on 10/28/09) voted to support the designation of October 13, 2009, as a National Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. The point was to draw public attention to the distinct needs of metastatic BC patients: women who live every day with this condition but, for the most part, are not heralded in pink.

My hope is that before October 2011, President Obama will make this day official: October 13 should be National Metastatic BC Awareness Day – so that women with advanced disease will know they’re not forgotten and, rather, will catch the public’s eye.

My pick for NMBCA Day’s official color: gray, to signify seriousness and uncertainty; but of course every woman should choose her own style!

—

Please see a related HuffPo piece; that includes patients’ and others’ viewpoints on this topic.